Before reading this article, please consider the following definitions:
DEMOCRACY: Democracy, at its core, means "rule by the people". This can be achieved through direct participation in decision-making (Direct Democracy) or through elected representatives (Representative Democracy).
DIRECT DEMOCRACY: Direct democracy is a system of government where citizens directly participate in decision-making on laws and policies, rather than electing representatives to make those decisions on their behalf. This means people vote on laws, bills, and court decisions themselves.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: A system of government where citizens elect representatives to make decisions and laws on their behalf, rather than directly voting on every issue. Essentially, it's a form of indirect democracy where elected officials act as intermediaries, representing the interests and views of their constituents. USA is a Republic and has a representative democracy.
Now, here is a “simple” question.
Assuming you have or (at least) have grown within a family unit (some parents or adults involved and some kids or other relatives involved), you have experienced family-decision-making situations. In those situations, there must have been some negotiations, some give and take, and eventually some control.
You might have experienced superfluously induced chaos, breakdowns, and/or wonderfully harmonious emerging choices. The more time you have spent inside a family unity, the more qualified you would be able to state - “I’ve seen it all”.
So, have you? Seen it all? Here comes the question, embedded within a scenario.
Imagine for a moment that someone who is NOT a member of your family, but it is a neighbour you learnt about, comes to your family and starts pitching a plan on how to solve the situations described above. The pitch offers solutions that serve some of your family members very well, but restrict the natural well-being of others in your family. Because this pitch causes significant stress and push-back, including signs of deterioration in your own family ties, this well intended neighbour offers the option to vote. They call this Democracy.
Evidently, some of your family members vote FOR and some vote AGAINST the pitched plan of the neighbour. The votes are counted transparently and those in favor, win. Those who voted against the pitched plan, lose.
So at this point, your own family has been effectively and democratically divided. Your family has voluntarily distanced itself from any chance of a harmonious and peaceful coexistence, and practically shifted its functionality towards a competitive system of precarious balance always subjected to the forces of persuasion - even if that persuasion may or may not always be based on accurate facts and the real needs of your small family unit.
You have now adopted what was pitched to you via a mechanism of influence and power erroneously called “democracy.” But it doesn’t stop there.
Some of your family members like colors. Some like to add posters on the walls of their rooms. Some like to listen to classical music, some like to listen to folk music. Some enjoy soup, some hate vegetables. Some are vegan, some are voracious carnivores. Some are too young to know what is best for them, and some are too old to care. Some are tired, some want it all. Some are facing beginning while others are contemplating endings. This is your family unit, made of entirely different individuals who live their lives through their own choices and experiences while sharing space, time, and narratives with each other.
However, for the friendly neighbour who managed to enter your house and convince everyone to adopt a plan via a democratic process, this is still chaos.
The democratic process of voting based on the quality of the initial pitch was just the first step. The second step in this democratic process is now ready to reveal itself - the friendly neighbour was democratically elected by your family, to represent your family, to guide your family, and…to represent your family in all matters of decision-making for your family. As such, your family members have been convinced to surrender their decision-making power to a single individual who is nothing more than an idea, let alone truly family and yet, has representative power - or in other words is empowered to carry your voice. Or so the voice says.
At this juncture in time, some of your family members are happy and some are unhappy. Fingers begin to point in every direction, and all harmony is lost. This is the stage where democracy in your family needs to be protected - and enforced. This is also the point where those who are happy begin to stick together at the expense of the others, while those unhappy begin to plan and strategize a decision-making takeover during the next election cycle.
To accomplish this, they bring in ANOTHER friendly neighbour to represent their interest in their own family and against the other members of the family.
As time passes, both the artificially invoked friendly neighbours begin bringing support, systems, and mechanisms to help advance the cause of the family members they “represent.” In doing so, they also begin designing completely new models of activities, cultural choices, and power structuring that can function independent of the original family members - your family members, if you remember where this started.
Ultimately, over time, everyone begins being convinced of how effective this democratic process is, and while placing full trust and surrendering all decision-making power to completely unrelated individuals, your family members also begin to move away from the original family values and closer to the new system of values based on the democratic approach now in full charge of the destiny of the family.
The next stage is the voluntary engagement of your family members in proselytism, when everyone becomes an evangelist for their own “side” and - more importantly - with a distinct purpose to “educate” future generations from their side on the values and virtues they now uphold, especially the democratic process brought forth by the friendly neighbours for the mutual benefit of everyone in your family.
In time, your family members will also forget how things could have functioned in your family. After even more time, generations apart, the knowledge will be lost and the only accepted way for the descendants of your family will be the "democratic" process of surrendering one’s decision-making power to the friendly neighbour with the most impetuous power or persuasion.
The very last stage in the destiny of your family for generations to come, the true nail in the coffin of your family independence is when all sides of your family begin to unquestionably defend the very process that divided them, because they no longer can imagine a better and more efficient, mutually respectful way to be a family.
Democratic truth as proselytized by the friendly neighbours injected in our families has now become unconditionally accepted as universal. Ideological unity via divisive strategies and maneuvers.
From here on, the destiny of your family - and millions of families just like yours - are in the persuasive hands of the elected friendly neighbours and their networks of support systems designed to enforce the full deployment of democracy and its ideological driving engine.
The division of all is now complete and functioning under the auspiciousness of one ideology used as justification for transferring all individual power to a centralized mechanism of power operating outside of all.
If you wonder what the endgame is, in general, for ALL socio-political systems that centralize power from the individual to a “higher” and nearly autonomous power mechanism - either by convincing individuals to surrender their power or by forcefully coercing them into giving it up - consider this and reflect on your own situation, in your own “family” - wherever you may be in the world:
Power, unchecked.
“Welcome” to today. Yours and ours, TODAY.
However, no problem should ever be dissected without at least attempting to reveal a solution. So, is there a solution to a control problem that has been millenia in the making?
Yes and no.
Yes, because what mankind had done can also be undone. With the right tools, resources, strategies, and mindset.
No, because the problem itself has a self-delete aspect, where humans are forgetful creatures and history was proven to be easily rewritten.
Yes, if we acknowledge our individual responsibility towards our species.
No, if we choose to ignore and not care about anyone's fate except our own individual one.
Yes, if we can understand and accept how flawed all of our systems have been, and how detrimental has been to our species as an intrinsic part of life on our planet.
No, if content like this one seems to be too long and too intellectually demanding. One of the hurdles of a true democracy is the education level of its citizens.
In short, and as always, we will solve this problem if we care about others, or, the problem will neutralize us all if we only choose to care about ourselves.
The “bad” news is that the solution is in our hands - so that it requires effort outside of our comfort zone. The “good” news is that our demise will be served chilled and with a dash of entertainment - just enough to dull our senses as we fade away.
It's all really just a choice away, but time does not favour hesitation. Just like other socio-political systems of governance, at it's very summit, Democracy as we define it today has no other place to go but to slip into dictatorship because it is not truly a democracy. It does so because, over time, unity through divisive strategies can only lead to chaos or chains - both favoring the powerful and being devastating to the powerless.
It happens through a number of mechanisms, including corruption, and it involves the eventual collapse of its very own ideology. In essence, the meaning of the term "democracy" (just like other terms and concepts regarding social systems) has been hijacked.
Pitched to you as a call to national unity, the ideological rhetoric has one single purpose - to further divide us until we become indoctrinated, then radicalized, then break into full submission.
If there is a lesson to remember, this is it:
Power, unchecked, equals “all means justify the end” and inevitably leads to the collapse of a free society.
What is there to do? At a minimum, each one of us MUST begin to engage in CIVIC conversations free of any ideology. These conversations MUST focus on universal human values and existential common ground through an impecable lens of mutual respect. These conversations MUST invite all members of our communities and society at large and pursue the common goal of re-envisioning a new model for human civilization - a model of cooperation and collaboration across all visible and invisible borders and until those borders dissapear and become replaced by means of dialogue and exchange.
NOTE: By 2024 this Index has continued to decline worldwide.
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